Many integrated circuit manufacturing processes involve the use of a patterning material to facilitate the fabrication of device components. Typically an image in the patterning material is transferred into a material layer of the device. Inherent irregularities in the image transferred into the material layer are often referred to in the field as edge roughness or line edge roughness. As new technologies are implemented to produce smaller device components, line edge roughness become increasingly problematic because it accounts for an increasingly large amount of error in the device component's desired size or shape. Unintended variations in the size or shape of device components can, in turn, cause the device to not perform as expected.
Accordingly, what is needed is a method for forming patterned structures of devices with less line edge roughness.